Guild Wars 2

I cannot raise cooking past about 142. I have a TON of mats non of which will combine for anything that will level. It seems vanilla is a key ingredient to leveling and it is extrmely expensive on the market (2 silver per bean) and I have NEVER found any. I think this needs to be adjusted in game. The Cooking seems disprportionately frustrating to level as certain tiers get hung up on specific ingredients, which means there will be a universal rush for those ingredients making it too hard to reasonably attain.
Other craftes have multiple items that can be used to raise the craft but cooking gets hung up on just a few. Not good imo.

You should not need excess amount of vanilla unless you follow one of those “guides” to level up your cooking skill.Had just few pieces in my bank and bought about 20 more most of them left over once i`ve reached 400 in cooking.You should be able to pass over 142 with just discoveries.Take a look at all cooking recipes available at Guild Wars 2 database sites.Checking one of them i can see lots of recipes with skill 125.Are you sure you did discover all of them apart from the ones automatically granted?Levelling your cooking if not willing to spend money at TP depends of your actual level in game,how many various cooking ingredients you have gathered while levelling and how many of heart NPCs selling in bulk various fruits/vegetables/seasonings you have opened.Generally you should not spam crafting anything just to level up-all is from discoveries and crafting the ingredients like soups for example you need to discover a new recipe.Only one item i`ve spammed crafted while levelling my cooking was Peach Tart-dessert giving +26% Magic Find at lv 70 .